The Movie Review and Discussion Thread

[lDlisturb3d]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

Adversaries?

Dude i did that on my iphone!

[lDlisturb3d]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

Hes a meteorologist AND a warrior? Where does he find the time?

Hahahahahahaha

[lDlisturb3d]

Monster Squad

Cool ass movie!

Many of my friends and co workers always mention how modern directors cant make movies like others did in the 80's. I think one of their exact words were "People just dont make good family movies anymore" Granted i wouldnt say the Monster Squad is a family movie but it surely has the kick back and enjoy the movie feeling to it.

I really enjoyed this 1987 classic, if i were to choose between this in Ghostbusters this would be my number 1 pick for sure. I thought the story was cool and the humor was good. Like i mentioned nothing was over the top it was just a cool movie. I wish i would of saw this as a kid i'd probably love it more now. My favorite line in the whole movie was "Kick him in the nuts! Wolf man doesnt have nards! Kick him in the NUTS! (KICK) Whoa Wolfman has Nards!!!!!!" Hilarious!

Recommended

4/5

[iam1bearcat]

OUTBREAK

i'm not going to be putting things in spoilers. this movie is 15 years old and not that good and i feel it's not a movie that needs to be spoiler covered. if someone would like me to, then i will, but for now, my review will contain spoilers.

Outbreak was made in 1995. and you can definitely tell. in the writing. in the acting. in the directing. in the look and feel of the film. in the six million laughably bad moments the film contains. but, i have a soft spot for "end of the world / disaster" flicks. and since Outbreak is that type of film, i enjoyed it. but not as much as i thought i would.

in 1967 a virus breaks out in Africa. the military decides to bomb the entire village, because there seems to be no cure and it's spreading fast. American soldiers are even caught up in the bomb that is dropped. some 40 years later, it's happening again! and the same military officers who knew of the bombing in 67 are STILL WORKING in 95! but of course they keep all this secret.

from one stupid action to the next the virus is spread to a bunch of people in Boston and a small town in California. what was once passed through only blood / saliva / contact, is now airborne! which makes the next part of the story even more ridiculous.

Morgan Freeman, in what has got to be one of his most over the top over obnoxious roles ever is hilariously bad. Kevin Spacey is also here (didn't know that) and he does a solid job. as does Dustin Hoffman... at times.

it's way too long and way to drawn out and way too fake. still fun to watch, but definitely not as good as i thought it would be. worth a rental, nothing more.

2/5

[Chaotic]

Beauty & the Beast 2.5/5

[jhiggy23]

Originally Posted by Chaotic

Beauty & the Beast 2.5/5

[jhiggy23]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

I must say, you have that back asswards sir. She was a psycho zealot. Its kinda hard to overact that.

We'll have to disagree

[Marcus Wright]

Originally Posted by Chaotic

Beauty & the Beast 2.5/5

Just like that, no reason.

[jhiggy23]

Diabolique (Criterion) (dvd)


Film: 3 1/2 stars (out of 4)


Very effective horror/suspense film from 1955, directed by Henri-George Clouzot (Wages of Fear). The film placed number 49 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Moments.

The film felt very Hitchcockian in its set-up and payoff. I found the last 15 minutes to be expertly directed, from the camera angles, to the lighting, to the lack of music. Fantastic sequence. Great way to kick off my horror movie spree of this month.

[jhiggy23]

Originally Posted by Pondosinatra

I guess I was just expecting another version of Planet Earth....and didn't overly enjoy being preached to. That aside the film is reference material.

I'm a bit indifferent about Baraka from a story-telling perspective, but never did I feel it was preaching, at all.

[jhiggy23]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

Do you feel that way about his older stuff, like The Stand?

The Stand is an exception.

[iam1bearcat]

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010)

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, ONE OF THE WORST FILMS OF 2010! AND POSSIBLY EVER!

before i begin my seemingly endless rant about the abomination that is the 2010 "remake" of A Nightmare on Elm Street, let me start by saying i am 22 years old. what does this mean? this means i was born AFTER the original was released. i have only seen the original, maybe 3 times. and it holds no special place in my heart. i don't regard it as a classic, it's good, but aside from a few positives here and there it doesn't strike me a classic or anything of the sort. so while i remember a few moments of the original, my review is not going to be a slaughtering of "the original did this and this and this, and the remake sucks because it didn't!" it's going to be a slaughtering that this movie - remake or not - is absolutely appalling to film.

i'll try and keep this as spoiler free as possible

within 10 minutes i knew all i needed to know about A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)...

- Freddy Krueger sounds like he has a major sinus infection, and looks like a mutated alien. neither of which make him scary
- the movie is way too slick and "shiny" for its own good. it doesn't look or feel like a good horror movie should
- the film is going to rely on the abysmal use of the "jump scare" from the opening minutes i guessed about 20 instances where a jump scare would be used. and i was correct. it's a shame that this is what the horror genre has come to. sad really, especially with such a unique story that could have emphasized any way of generating scares, but to dumb it down to jump scares? ugh.
- the cast - every single one - is absolutely horrible! no one can act! i pray none of these actors / actresses are ever hired again for any role. the actor who plays Quentin (Kyle Gallner - who also starred in the horrible The Haunting in Connecticut) looks like a freakin Edward from Twilight clone, but only shorter and with longer, curlier hair. and Thomas Dekker (Jesse) thank god

[Show spoiler]he died early on

because he was easily the worst actor of the bunch. what a fun award to win

i don't really consider this a remake, but just as a "new" horror film, this is pure garbage i believe horror films work when they aren't slick, super shiny products filled with generic music that is supposed to freak me out while updating my facebook account via a tweet for my twitter account. oh wait... i'm not 15. so that doesn't work effectively. two remakes that got it right were The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes. they weren't perfect, but they were brutal, grisly, grimy, and relentless. and if they were stand alone, new horror films, i would enjoy them all the same.

as if the acting wasn't bad enough, the logic behind character decisions is baffling. no one would do what these people do. but of course, "scary movie = it's okay to have dumb characters" ugh

hey, let's see, i'm in a prison cell with some punk high school kid who

[Show spoiler]suddenly is screaming and covered in blood and laying on the floor and once he's dead and not moving

and THEN i run to the door why wouldn't you be screaming the whole damn time?!

or how about saying "stay with me" because you're afraid to fall asleep. DOES IT F****** MATTER?! you JUST SAID you understand that he gets you when you fall asleep. so how is someone staying with you (especially after your "power nap" talk ) gonna make any sense or help at all? ugh.

hell, the film even uses lens flare!
don't get me wrong, i loved how it was used in Star Trek (2009), but never use that in a "dark" horror film! WTF is wrong with these people?

and why, why, why at the end did it suddenly feel like the film was being shown in 3D? sh!t was flying towards the camera, zoom ins all over the place, it was obnoxious and made no sense.

this was quite the 90 minute epic of terribleness that i could barely sit through.
i have lost all faith in the horror genre, especially if it's directed by someone who has made 189 music videos but not a single movie before this

i was also going to put that a negative was how little Freddy is in the actual film, but once i saw how hilariously stupid his make up / CGI effects were, i saw it as a positive that we see him for as little as we do.

this was not worth the $3 to rent this.
and just to get the bad taste out of my mouth, i can't go to bed now, i need to watch a great movie to redeem my faith in film. so i guess the movie succeeded. Freddy makes me want to stay up and not go to bed

0/5

[Romulus]

The Thin Red Line (Criterion Blu-ray) - 4.5/5

I've come to like this movie more and more over the years. Every time I watch there is something new I can appreciate. With the Criterion Blu-ray I was able to really get a new appreciation for the Cinematography. In my opinion, it's one of the most beautifully shot films of all time. It has excellent camera work with the steady cam shots being absolutely flawless. The film offers a broad color palette that looks absolutely phenomenal.

I enjoy listening to the philosophical narrative. It obviously can bore people to sleep but it's one of the aspects that I've always enjoyed. While there is quite a bit of action in the film, a majority is focused on the philosophy of man and war.

I stated in The Thin Red Line Blu-ray thread that people probably would have an easier time watching this film if they watched Days of Heaven first. In terms of plot structure it is very similar. Malick's films often sacrifice dialogue for shots, relying on nature to tell the story.

If you don't mind watching a war film that will make you think then no doubt check this out. Split the movie up over two nights if you have to because the film has a lot to digest.

[iam1bearcat]

decided to go against the grain and watch Requiem for a Dream (Director's Cut) first thing in the morning
lucky i don't have anything going on, so if it destroys me i can just go crawl in a hole

[CZAR]

Deadgirl (2008) - This was a weird and strange film. But as the film kept going I liked it more and more. It seemed at first that it was gonna be another low budget bad horror film, but it turned out to be not to bad. The concept was kind of weird but original and the more I saw of the film I liked the concept more and more. This is a movie for serious horror fans only.

Film Rating - 3 stars (out of 5)

Got Em!!

[Batman1980]

Beauty and the Beast 5/5
PQ 5/5
AQ 5/5
I can't believe how good it looks and sounds on blu-ray, noticing stuff I've never noticed before and I've seen this movie at least 100 times.

[Al_The_Strange]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

CHILDREN OF MEN

[Show spoiler]
first time viewing

i probably should love Children of Men more than i do.

original story? check.
bleak outlook on humanity? check.
dystopian sci-fi future where extinction appears imminent? check.
great performances? check.

while Children of Men gets a lot right, once it was over i knew it wasn't nearly 5/5 material, but it's still a damn good film and that's all that really matters.

the story of Children of Men is quite simple: the year is 2027, and set in the United Kingdom. but the entire world is facing the same problem: all females, all races are facing infertility. this has caused dozens of problems: from war, political uprisings, environmental issues, and small groups of cult like behaving citizens taking the law into their own hands. frightening to think if this would happen, what would our own, already pretty messed up and constantly destroyed world turn into?

however, hope is found in that a young woman named Kee turns out to be pregnant. but another issue is that she is a "fugee" - an illegal immigrant. she, and the group she is with, believes the government will take her baby, kill her and say the baby came from someone else. this leads to numerous other issues, because trust is a very hard thing to come by.

i loved how right off the bat you get to fill in the blanks of this world by yourself. the film starts with learning that the youngest person in the world has been killed. this has shaken up the community, and we quickly learn why. but also we learn information from newspaper clippings, tv news clips in buses and the constant graffiti and chaos in the cities.

i also love the atmosphere, cinematography, and the feel of the film. it feels gritty, looks bleak and is simply a dismal film to watch because there's barely anything good going on. there isn't much of a score, and there doesn't need to be. the film works and is beautifully layered with constant screamings, haunting silence, gun fire, chaos and the always underlying rumble of citizens causing issues. but the visuals can also be stomach turning. seeing people in cages and in "refugee camps" will certainly make connections to Concentration camps. at least for me it did. and thinking the world could suddenly, in any way be similar to that terrible time is history is completely depressing. and i think the film did this on purpose to how that no matter how far we've come, we're simply one problem away from being exactly where we were decades ago. and that applies to anything humanities history.

i enjoyed the camera work at times because of its distinct feel. there is camera movement, but it's usually just one camera. makes the film feel more real and more personal. it reminded me a lot of 28 Days Later both in camera work and the cinematography and atmosphere of the films. both are very bleak, but in very different ways.

i also enjoyed the original story. most stories of human extinction are either an asteroid killing us all instantly (Armageddon, Deep Impact), a virus escaping (28 Days Later, Outbreak), or some natural disaster or something close to that (the movie with the volcano, The Day After Tomorrow) or the horror route (zombies). but this? this is a slow death. this is a death that doesn't suddenly come like a gun shot to the head (quick death), this is like a shot to the knee, hand, elbow or thigh (slow death).

and maybe i've played MGS4 too much, but the third act in the refugee camp while Theo and Kee are trying to escape really felt a lot like MGS4. maybe MGS4 took away something from Children of Men? no idea, but the destroyed buildings, government forces attacking small militia groups, had a very reminiscent feel to it.

one haunting scene of hope in particular is near the end when

[Show spoiler]the military comes into one of the destroyed buildings and see Kee with her baby. they stop firing and you can sense that they all know that there is hope. because as different as people are either from race, sex, religion or place they live, it's a baby for the first time in 18 years

and they all know what that means.

the film also seems to get darker and darker, bleaker and bleaker as it continues on. could be exhausting for some to view this.

i don't really have any complaints with the film. a few pacing issues, and 2 instances where the film suddenly tries to be funny and lighthearted don't really work well when it suddenly gets grim again. aside from that, no major complaints that i made note of.

worthy of a rental for sure. probably won't be buying this though, but glad i finally saw it

4/5

Awesome review; I agree with everything 100%!

I personally gave it a 5/5, because at the least, it's about as depressing as "Requiem for a Dream" was.

And yes, the one scene

[Show spoiler]when they're walking out of the building and all the fighting suddenly stops

really gets to me too.

[jawsfan1975]

LAST OF THE MOHICANS

I had not seen this for over 10 years, a good movie, very dark in places, I also had to adjust the volume frequently as my son was sleeping (loud cannons and low dialogue). Overall, I thought it looked and sounded good enough for a blu upgrade.
PQ 3/5
AQ 3/5

[surfdude12]

Last of The Mohicans

Film: 3/5
-Hadn't seen it since release
-The script seemed incredibly incoherent and just chaotic, especially the first 20 mins of the film: we got the French over here, we got the English over here, we got Tribe #1 over here, we got Tribe #2 over here, we got innocent family over here...this group is allied with this group and this group is allied with this group...about 20 mins in this was my face:
-As Jaws says above, the AQ threw fuel on the fire: incredibly loud cannon fire yet barely audible dialogue, forbidding one to turn up the dialogue to audible level lest you risk your surround sound system if a cannon goes off.
-I had to put on subtitles, and even then by the end of the film, could understand maybe 50% about what was going on, and most importantly: why it was happening. Nothing like Dances with Wolves where at the end you felt "aha, its clear why the characters did what they did and are doing what they're doing as the film ends." I think its more that I don't think the script doesn't make much sense, than I couldn't understand the script.
-oh well, I really wanted to love this film. it would have helped to know some background history here, but shouldn't the script writer presume the viewer has little or none?
-any suggestions or help here would be appreciated. am I way off? I haven't read any reviews or summaries of the film. Just watched and wrote this.
-RANT OVER

PQ: 3.5/5 (inconsistent: 4/5 during day, 3/5 at night)

AQ: 2.5/5 (great sound effects, etc, horrible dialogue level)

[Al_The_Strange]

I don't think I've ever seen "Last of the Mohicans" all the way through. All I remember is seeing it in school, and there was some parts where the natives were hacking off certain body parts...

Ain't education grand?

I might have to rent this and see what I think these days, but back then I remember being unimpressed.